He laughs at the thought but says: “Snarl is actually a pretty good way to put
it. I can’t say I planned it but I’m glad it came out that way.

“If I’m going to assume the point of view of the disenfranchised, there’s
probably a lot of anger in there anyway.”

American Dream Plan B begins with some menacing, grungy riffage before Petty’s
vocals and Mike Campbell’s ever-fluid lead guitar send the track climbing
through the gears.

So did he always plan to make this first album with the Heartbreakers since
2010’s Mojo a real rock ’n’ roll affair? “I kinda did from early on,” he
replies. “The first things we cut were pretty much pure blues songs but I
began thinking I didn’t want to go down this road again. I thought it might
be fun to make a full-on rock album.”

The result is a record that sonically harks back to the band’s early days in
the mid-Seventies when Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were considered part
of the New Wave scene.

Petty says: “We did a lot of shows back then with punk groups including The
Ramones. We didn’t mind that much because we all had the same spirit.

“But I just thought it would be fraud for us to get those haircuts!

“Mike Campbell and I were playing back the first rough version of the (new)
album and he said, ‘Man, I swear your singing sounds like the first two
albums to me’. The more I listened to it, the more I could understand that.
The material led me to that space.” As much as anything, Hypnotic Eye is a
celebration of Petty’s amazing relationship with his band, particularly
Campbell and keyboard ace Benmont Tench.

It’s also great that original bassist Ron Blair, who lends tasty “fuzz bass”
to proceedings, is back in the fold after a 20-year hiatus between 1982 and
2002. These guys knew each other as teenagers and still enjoy the banter you
only get with decades of familiarity.

Petty loves the enduring bonds: “Even now, a friendly argument will start
about something that happened in, say, ’72. ‘Remember when there was only
one cheesecake in room service, I ordered it and you took it off the tray
before it got to my room. That p***ed me off!’ ”

He can’t see himself ever making another album without the band despite the
appearance of his 2006 solo album Highway Companion.

“I don’t see that I have anything to offer as a solo artist that I couldn’t do
within the group better,” he affirms.

“We get along so well it’s embarrassing really. It’s a love fest!”

So many American performers are defined by geography. The Beach Boys and the
West Coast. The Velvet Underground and New York. Dolly Parton and Tennessee.

But Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have created a pan-American sound that
crosses state lines with every widescreen note.

Of course, Petty first formed his taste and ambition while growing up in the
Sixties, a musical decade he describes as “very intimidating”.

“And none of us can compete with Bob Dylan even now you know. He’s far above
us all,” he says of his fellow Traveling Wilbury (both were members of the
Eighties supergroup).

“Music was so good when I was young. At ten, I was obsessed with becoming a
record fan.

“I came to befriend some old records, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and all that
good Fifties rock ’n’ roll. I learned all that stuff so by the time The
Beatles came along, it was like, ‘Wow! This is my music, the music of my
generation.’

“I’m still interested in going back and seeing what I missed. I still want to
find that Hank Williams song I’ve never heard.”

Another key song on Hypnotic Eye is All You Can Carry, partly because of its
telling line: “Take what you can and leave the past behind”.

Mention of the track leads Petty to reflect on his situation… still making
records, still touring, still doing the thing he loves best. “I never
pictured myself doing all this at this point in my life,” he says. “It’s
very rewarding and still lots of fun. I’m just in love with recording. I
built a studio at home and I’m hardly ever out of it.

“If we weren’t still cutting it any more and I felt we’d become an oldies
jukebox, we probably wouldn’t do it.

“There are bands that don’t have a choice but I still insist on playing new
songs. It can be hard when you have your old catalogue as a bar to live up
to.”

Petty, it seems, is a restless soul, not one to look back too much and he
agrees. “I run a pretty fast-paced life and I always like having a project
to do.

“I hate to be bored. That is the greatest sin I can commit. I’m sure it
irritates a lot of people around me but I like to keep moving.”

With a barnstorming new album bristling with attitude, Petty has moved on. And
then some.